Terrence McNally’s new play,
Corpus Christi has given birth to a plethora of “Christian” terrorist threats.
The play has been said to revolve around a fictional Christ-like character
who interacts sexually with his 12 disciples.

The production, until cancelled
by management, was to have opened at the Manhattan Theatre Club, one of
New York’s premiere theatrical venues. Mr. McNally has had other
hits, such as his comedy Love! Valour! Compassion!

The Catholic League for Religious
and Civil Rights, which claims— in an oxymoron-- to be the largest non-violent
group Roman Catholic civil rights organization, initiated a widespread
Roman Catholic letter-writing campaign against McNally’s latest production.
Then came a host of threats.

“Christians”, presumably,
who reportedly love their enemies and who pray for those who despitefully
use them, are instead bitterly threatening murder, arson, and general mayhem.

Trans World Airlines (TWA)
has confirmed to reporters that it informed the embattled theatre that
the inter-continental airline will withdraw its financial support from
the Manhattan Theatre Club if Corpus Christi is to be staged.

From the playwright’s or
an artist’s standpoint, the brainless branding of a play prior to its showing,
accomplished by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, disallows
its creator the right to see his creation freshly judged by its audiences,
and not by censoring religious zealots. Joe Mantello, the man who was to
have directed Corpus Christi, put it this way:

“A new play is a very fragile
thing. No one will ever see it the same way. We can never have an untainted
experience.”

McNally’s peers are
standing behind him. Response to the cancellation by well-known playwrights
has been swift and unsparing. South Africa’s Athol Fugard says he’s
withdrawing his own play scheduled at the Manhattan Theatre Club. A number
of Mr. Fugard’s plays have been produced by the Club.

Tony Kushner, author of Angels
in America described the cancellation as “appalling” and said he and others
were talking of a protest-uprising utilizing the talents of celebrated
playwrights.

The Club, now perceived as
bowing to Catholic demands for censorship and to “Christian” terrorism,
denies that its capitulation to such terrorism has been inappropriate.
“This became an issue of safety, not censorship,” insists Lynne Meadow,
the theatre’s artistic director.

Anonymous telephone-threat-makers,
according to the theatre club’s administrators, have promised to burn down
the theatre, kill its staff and “exterminate” the playwright.

Terrence McNally’s response
to what has become a theatrical scandal was made after several days of
silence. Through his agent, author McNally said he “greatly regrets that
the Manhattan Theatre Club has decided not to go forward with plans to
produce his new play, Corpus Christi.”

Athol Fugard, said that by
withdrawing his play, The Captain’s Tiger, from the theatre club that he
hoped to make known “the strongest possible protest” of which he was capable.
Fugard said his decision to withdraw has been painful. But, he said, he’d
been shocked and disturbed by the theatre club’s failure to stand up for
artistic freedom.

He writes: “In yielding to
the blackmail and threats of the Catholic League the theatre management
has compromised one of the basic freedoms of democracy—the Freedom of Speech—and
they have done it by censoring themselves and collaborating in the attempt
to silence Mr. McNally.”

Fugard had been grateful,
he said, because of the Manhattan Theatre Club’s support for his plays
attacking apartheid in South Africa. Having known as much free speech
as he did, however, convinced him of how we must enshrine free speech as
a foremost value.

“It was those very years
of apartheid that have taught me what Freedom of Speech really means,”
he said.

Tony Kushner said “It’s shocking
that in New York City a major theatre succumbs to pressure like this…This
is a medieval notion that the arts in the U.S. need to follow the Roman
Catholic theological line.”

Upon receiving notice that
the Manhattan Theatre Club had cancelled the McNally play, the Roman Catholic
“civil rights” organization announced it was “delighted”. The Catholics
felt, they said, that “someone had to pull the plug from this despicable
play.”

Threatening retaliation against
any other theatre that might consider running Corpus Christi, however,
the true colors of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights shone
brightly. It warned that any such theatres would be placing themselves
at the center of “a war that no one will forget.”

“We’ll remember the Inquisition,
the Holocaust and the Catholic genocidal role in Rwanda too,” replied gay
activist Bob Kunst.